"Martin Cooper made the first mobile phone call in 1972, and communication has never been the same. Listen as Martin takes us through the invention process and shares how he predicts the technology will continue to evolve."

CONTRIBUTOR

SHARE

"Produced by Larry Keating for AT&T. 'THE ARTIST AND THE COMPUTER is an excellent introductory informational film that dispels some of the 'mystery' of computer–art technology, as it clarifies the necessary human input of integrity, artistic sensibilities, and aesthetics…. Ms. Schwartz's voice over narration explains what she hoped to accomplish in the excerpts from a number of her films and gives insight into the artist's problems and decisions…. I would recommend THE ARTIST AND THE COMPUTER for all grade levels, in classes on filmmaking, art appreciation, and human values.' – John Canemaker, Film News, Animation, Jan.–Feb. 1978. Cine Golden Eagle 1976; New York Film Festival; USIA – Animation and Education 1977; Annual Creative Problem Solving Institute, 1980. Recent screening at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, December 10, 2012."

CONTRIBUTOR

SHARE

"March 2010 will mark the 25th anniversary of the first .com registration. While we know that the first .com was assigned to symbolics.com on March 15, 1985, the genesis of .com is less clear. According to Craig Partridge, chief scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies, the name for domains evolved as the system was created. At first, .cor was proposed as the domain name for corporations, but when the final version came out it was switched to .com.

It took some time for .com to take off. Two and a half years after the first registration, only 100 total .com domain name registrations existed. The early adopters included IBM, Intel, AT&T and Cisco. By 1992, there were still less than 15,000 .com domain names registered and the million–domain name mark wasn't crossed until 1997, well into the Internet boom. Then came the '.com boom', with nearly 20 million names registered in the next two years. The emergence of online businesses as well as early speculative activity fueled the rapid growth.

The burst of the 'bubble' cooled off the rapid growth for a short period, and since then .com has grown at a steady rate, with now more than 80 million domain names registered around the world. Yet, some of the most popular Web sites today were registered late into the .com era. Linkedin.com, for example, was registered in 2002 and flickr.com in 2003. Youtube.com wasn't registered until 2005."

CONTRIBUTOR

SHARE

John Zerzan p.2
The AT&T telephone commercial/exhortation of some years back, "Reach out and touch someone," offered human contact but concealed the truth that such technology has in fact been crucial in taking us ever further from that contact. Direct experience is replaced by mediation and simulation. Digitised information supplants the basis of actual closeness and possible trust among interacting physical beings. According to Boris Groys, "We just have to deal with the fact that we can no longer believe our eyes, our ears. Everyone who has worked with a computer knows that.